How does that whole package of thought (ideological understanding) translate to...

How does that whole package of thought (ideological understanding) translate to concerns for a return to the Cold War even to this day?

A whole empire of ideological understanding was built around the interpretive concept of the Cold War, and containment of the communist global threat to world peace as known in the Western democracies.

During the Cold War, a set of ideologies arose around the idea of containing communism. The main idea was that communism was a clear danger to the world and that it had to be contained at almost any cost. A subsidiary idea was that major threats needed to be attacked aggressively rather than being allowed to grow and become more powerful like Hitler had been in the 1930s. These ideas can be said to translate to concerns about a return to the Cold War today.

We can argue that, because we are used to thinking about ideological threats, we are more likely to perceive them in situations today. This may be, for example, one factor that is behind our concern over the rise of China and our recent “pivot” to the Pacific. Because of our “package” of Cold War ideas, we are conditioned to believe that a country like China needs to be contained before it can become big enough and powerful enough to be a threat. This inspires us to try hard to ensure that China does not expand its power.

In this way, our ways of thought that arose during the Cold War have, it can be argued, conditioned the ways in which we respond to current conditions.